


big bad wolf

by envysparkler



Series: Pavor [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Brother Acquisition, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Enemy to Caretaker, Gen, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: Days before Red Hood plans to reveal himself, Scarecrow escapes Arkham.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Pavor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932523
Comments: 210
Kudos: 1426
Collections: Red Hood vs Red Robin





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder that the author has never touched a batman comic in their life.

The Red Hood was laying low. No shipments coming into the docks tonight, Black Mask was still plotting on how to catch him, and he’d thought he’d give it a few days before he crossed the cops’ radar.

The reaction to the duffel bag had been as glorious as he’d expected, but it turned out that the police were touchy about severed heads. Hood couldn’t imagine why.

But he had to focus on the endgame, which wasn’t Crime Alley, which wasn’t Black Mask, which wasn’t the corrupt task force in this godforsaken hellhole of a city. The endgame was Batman and the Joker, and he was going to keep his eyes on the prize.

The Bat signal was up. Arkham breakout, yet again. Hood wasn’t sure why they didn’t replace the intake desk with a fancy revolving door. _Not_ the Joker, which was good – Hood had about two weeks left before everything was ready for that particular showdown. And he also had to track down a certain little cuckoo bird that had wormed its way into the nest.

But all pleasant thoughts of his revenge had to put on hold as the city bunkered down, streets emptying as Scarecrow’s escape was broadcast from every TV and radio. Hood was doing his part, ensuring that every kid in the alleys had a shelter to go to or gas masks if they couldn’t. 

Hood escorted a couple of teenagers to the abandoned building they were squatting in, and did a quick recon of the area. He’d made sure his helmet’s air filters were equipped to filter out fear gas, and the ever-present green tinge was thrumming at him to _do_ something. Find some action. Find something to _break_.

Unfortunately, even the drug dealers and crime lords knew that Scarecrow was bad for business.

Hood made one last show of surveying the area, making sure no one was left out in the open, before he headed back – he was closer to the Bowery than he’d like, especially when Crime Alley was the only place he knew Batman would never show, and the streets were ringed with condemned buildings, still and silent –

A faint scream.

A _kid’s_ scream.

Hood was moving before he made a conscious decision, before his rational mind could catch up to him and explain that screams meant Scarecrow meant Batman meant _he was not ready for this_ –

Hood hesitated on a ledge, peering through an empty thirteenth floor window to the dilapidated room beyond. It was an open floor plan, presumably once an office, and there were no movements from the shadows as Hood slowly slipped inside.

Another scream. Closer. Louder. Breaking into sobs.

Definitely a kid. The green tinge of _how dare they how could he how did they let this happen_ grew stronger as he stalked towards the sound. He was going to put a bullet in Scarecrow’s skull.

_Don’t give drugs to kids_. How hard was it to understand?

And then he turned the corner, registered what he was looking at, and stilled as his entire vision turned green.

Black and yellow and red and green. Different from the suit he’d died in, but the colors were the same and _R_ splashed across his chest was the same, and the black hair and the blue eyes and the terrified expression on his face and –

“ _Run_ ,” the kid breathed and it jolted Hood out of his daze. Robin wasn’t looking at him, his frantic gaze locked somewhere in the shadows as he strained against the ropes that bound him to the chair, his limbs weak and jittering. “Run, you have to run before he gets back, you have to _go_.”

Hood ignored him and did a slow circuit of the room. Couple of creepy looking vials, four syringes – one used, three full – but no sign of a burlap sack or the man who wore it. The place was eerily quiet, broken only by the Replacement’s soft pleas.

“You have to go, he’s going to come back,” the Replacement begged someone only he could see, “Go, _please_ , just go!”

Hood studied the Replacement – gaze apparently unfocused, movements skittish and directionless, bound in ropes that showed no hint of slackness – and the part of him that bled green laughed.

He stepped forward, into the dim light cast through the glass-less windows, and the Replacement’s gaze snapped to him. He screamed, and Hood felt his lips slowly curve up into a smile.

Not a kid. A bird falling neatly into his lap. Hood had been looking for something to break, and he would barely have to lift a finger for this.

“No,” the boy who stole his place, stole his seat, stole his goddamn suit, said, shaking his head frantically. He pressed back further into the chair, gasping softly. “No, no, _no_.”

“Yes,” Hood replied, and the mechanized voice hid none of his glee.

“No,” the Replacement whimpered, his gaze again darting to the empty shadows, “No, you have to run, he’s here, you have to _go_.”

“Worry about yourself, Replacement,” Hood said, low and dangerous.

“He’s here,” the Replacement said, his gaze flickering back and forth between Hood and his hallucination, “He’s here, he came back, you need to run, you need to go, you have to leave before he sees you.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Hood said softly.

The Replacement pressed back even further, knuckles turning white as he clutched the chair, but there was nowhere for him to go. He stared up at Hood in stark terror.

“He’s back – don’t – run – you have to _go_ – you can’t – he’s going to catch you – please – you need to leave, Jason!”

Hood froze.

“Jason,” the kid said, trembling, “Run.” His voice cracked. “ _Please_.”

Hood slowly swiveled to face the patch of shadows the kid was staring at. The kid shrieked, “No, don’t – leave him alone – don’t – I’m the one you want – I’m _Robin_ – please don’t –”

The shadows were empty. Jason turned back to the kid, and quivering limbs slumped in something that looked disturbingly like relief.

“I’m the one you want,” the kid repeated, like Jason couldn’t hear his heartbeat hammering so loud the room was echoing with it. Or was that his own heartbeat, ringing in his ears? The green-laced rage had vanished, and Jason felt sick and empty in its absence.

Numb fingers pressed into the latches of his helmet – a used syringe, so low probability of aerosolized toxin – and tugged it off. The kid didn’t register the movement, breathing too fast as his gaze fluttered between Jason and the hallucination.

Jason clipped the helmet to his belt, and hesitated for one long moment – was he really going to do this? – before reaching up and unsealing the domino mask. It came off in his hand, and the kid hitched on a sob as he stared at Jason.

“Hi, kid,” Jason said quietly.

“Jason?” the kid breathed out, his voice breaking.

“Yup,” he said, carefully, cautiously moving forward, his hands held out at his sides, “I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”

“You need to run,” the kid choked, “He’s going to come back, you need to leave, it’s the _Joker_.”

Jason’s movements faltered, but he took a deep breath and inched forward. The Joker was in Arkham. The kid was seeing things. “We’ll both leave,” Jason said softly, and reached out to brush the edges of the rope. The kid tensed and then went limp, his gaze fixed on Jason’s face. “I’m going to cut you free.”

“You have to run before he comes back,” the kid said, wavering. Jason slipped a knife between the rope and the chair and began sawing, “You have to go, Jason, promise me, please, you have to –”

The kid went alarmingly still. Jason paused.

“He’s here,” the kid croaked out.

Jason resumed cutting. “No one’s there, kid. You got hit with fear toxin. No one’s here but you and me.”

“No, Jason, he’s here,” the kid said, his voice raising higher and higher in frantic panic, “He’s here, he came back, _he’s right behind you_.”

Jason resisted the urge to snap his head back. The kid had been dosed with fear toxin, he was definitely seeing things, and Jason hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. No one was standing behind him with a crowbar held high and –

No. No one was there. He would not succumb to paranoia.

“We’ll get out of here,” Jason said quietly. Almost through. “And I’ll get you the antidote.” But where? Jason didn’t have a chemical lab tucked away in his basement to deconstruct Crane’s compound and create a neutralizer, and while he could break into a lab somewhere in the city, he didn’t like the thought of leaving the kid high on fear, stuck in a nightmare with the Joker.

The knot came free. “There we go,” Jason said, tugging the rope off. The Cave. The best place to create the antidote was the Cave. _Goddammit_.

“Jason,” the kid choked out – the moment Jason reached for him, he had a hundred pounds of teenage vigilante sobbing into his body armor. “Jason. He’s here. You need to run.”

“Shh, kid, we’re getting out of here,” Jason said, curling an arm below the kid’s legs and hoisting him up fully. He paused to grab the syringes and vials, tucking them into a pocket as he awkwardly maneuvered the kid so he could hold him one-handed. The kid made it easier on him by clinging tightly to Jason’s jacket. “We’re going home.”

Jason ignored how those words felt in his mouth and tugged his helmet back on as he headed back to the window.

“He’s following us,” the kid whispered into Jason’s shoulder.

There was no use in pointing out that the kid had been dosed with fear toxin, or that the Joker was still in Arkham, so Jason just tightened his grip. “I’ll keep you safe, baby bird,” he promised, and aimed the grapple gun.

Their flight across the city went unnoticed, Jason’s old passcodes still worked, and the Cave was dark and silent as they crept back in. Jason deposited the kid on a bed in the medbay and headed for the synthesizer. He loaded the contents of one of Crane’s syringes and the machine lit up with a familiar hum.

Jason glanced around the Cave uneasily, something prickling up his spine. He didn’t need to stay here. The kid would be safe, the antidote was in the process of being developed, Batman would surely come back soon and take care of his wayward bird.

The Replacement would chalk the whole thing up to a fear toxin nightmare, and if Jason paused to wipe the security cameras on his way out, his presence would go entirely undetected. His carefully laid plans wouldn’t be ruined. No one would ever have to know.

“Jason!” the kid screamed and Jason cursed as he sprinted back to the medbay. “He’s here. He’s _here_.”

“No one’s here,” Jason said, climbing on top of the bed and roughly hauling the kid into his lap, “You’re home. You’re safe.” The kid’s mask had become unstuck through tears and something in Jason’s heart clenched as he saw those wide blue eyes latch onto his face with a faith he didn’t deserve.

“I’m getting the antidote ready,” Jason said softly, letting the kid clench shaking fingers into his leather jacket, “The fear will end soon, I promise.”

“He’s here,” the kid whimpered, and clung tighter.

“No one’s –”

The prickle between his shoulder blades solidified. Jason froze. And a voice he never wanted to hear again, tone frozen between low growl and utter confusion –

“Jason?”

* * *

Bruce had no idea what he was looking at. He was rooted to the spot, watching with wide, disbelieving eyes as his second son sawed through the ropes binding Robin to the chair.

Tim caught sight of him, and went _white_. “He’s here,” he breathed out, horrified.

Jason barely even paused. “No one’s there, kid. You got hit with fear toxin. No one’s here but you and me.” His voice was lower than Bruce remembered. His face was older – nineteen, not the fifteen Bruce had buried him at.

“No, Jason, he’s here,” Tim said frantically, “He’s here, he came back, _he’s right behind you_.”

Bruce froze. Jason didn’t turn.

“We’ll get out of here,” Jason said quietly. “And I’ll get you the antidote.” The rope came free and Jason tugged it off, catching Tim easily when the younger boy threw himself at him. Bruce couldn’t – he wasn’t –

Bruce had lost Scarecrow somewhere in a scuffle near the Narrows as the man cackled about a strung up bird. Had he gotten hit with toxin in the battle? Was he hallucinating?

_No_. If he was seeing Jason then he was going to see the warehouse, the bomb, the awful way his chest had collapsed, the nightmares he saw every time he closed his eyes – he was going to watch both his younger sons die in the same way, over and over and _over_ –

“We’re going home,” Jason said as he moved towards the window – and pulled a helmet on. A familiar helmet. The Red Hood.

Bruce had absolutely no idea what was going on.

He followed the figures, careful to stay out of sight as he trailed them back to the Cave. The doors had been opened with Jason’s old code. The Red Hood tugged his helmet back off as he left Tim in the medbay and headed to the synthesizer with the ease of long familiarity.

The man looked like a nineteen-year-old Jason Todd. Like what Jason would’ve looked like, if he’d ever gotten the chance to be nineteen. If Bruce hadn’t held his broken body in his arms, if Bruce hadn’t _buried_ him –

Tim caught sight of Bruce and started screaming again. Jason ran back, not noticing Bruce, and softly tried to reassure the kid, soothing his fear even as Tim kept his wide-eyed gaze on Bruce, on whoever he was seeing instead of the cowl.

“He’s here,” Tim said, his breath hitching, clinging to Jason. Bruce was losing his mind.

“No one’s –”

“Jason?” He had to know. He _had_ to know. He was – this didn’t feel like any fear toxin he’d ever experienced, but his heart was racing as the man stiffened and turned towards him.

As Red Hood realized that he’d taken his helmet off and forgotten to put his domino mask back on.

As Jason went pale.

Bruce tugged the cowl off, desperate to look at Jason with his own eyes. His son – his _dead son_ – stiffened even further, staring at Bruce like a deer in headlights.

“Jason?” Bruce repeated, his voice cracking, his tone full of the hope he could no longer suppress.

Jason’s face shuttered.

“Great,” he said flatly, shoving Tim off his lap and ignoring the younger boy’s cry, “He’s your problem now.”

“Jason?”

He got up, heading for the exit, but Bruce blocked his path. Staring at the snarl etched onto his son’s face, the pulsing green eyes, the trembling as Jason balled his hands into fists.

“Jason?” Bruce asked again, unable to believe what was in front of him. Unable to _disbelieve_ what was in front of him. “What – how – what happened – how did you –”

But Bruce didn’t care about the questions. He didn’t care about the answers. Not when his son was standing in front of him. _Alive_.

Bruce choked and lunged forward.

Jason was a frozen statue, but he was warm, and Bruce could hear his heart beating, and there was no movement of shifting bones or the rancid smell of blood or – or –

Salt. He could taste salt.

“Jay,” Bruce said softly, and slow, careful hands curled around him. “You’re _alive_.”

Hands shifted up.

“No,” Jason said, his voice cold, “Your son is dead.”

Something whistled through the air and Bruce couldn’t jerk away fast enough – the Cave wavered and spun around him, his head throbbing, and Bruce sank to the floor with Tim’s screams ringing in his ears as the Red Hood walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, in my defense, I started writing with the full intention of wrapping this up with a happy ending and I got all the way to the hug before my hand just...slipped.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is whump with only the thinnest strings of plot to connect the scenes together so I apologize in advance if it doesn't make sense.

“We have an emergency?” Dick asked, his voice nearly drowned out by staticky winds, “What is it? Arkham?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, because Scarecrow was still loose, even if his plan had been more oriented towards revenge than wide-scale destruction, but that wasn’t why he was calling. “But that’s not the emergency.”

“…There’s an Arkham breakout and a completely separate emergency?”

“Yes.” Bruce awkwardly curled an arm around Tim, swaddled up in the Batman cape so that he’d stop screaming. The antidote was going to take another half-hour to synthesize. Tim wouldn’t stop begging Jason to run.

“Just to reiterate, there’s an emergency that somehow takes precedence over an ongoing Arkham breakout.”

“Yes.”

Dick muttered something, his voice muffled but his tone distinctly displeased, before he spoke up, “Are you going to tell me what it is, or do I have to drag it out, word by word?”

Bruce opened his mouth, and closed it again. It was – he wasn’t going mad. He’d double-checked the security footage. But he had a pounding headache and Tim was still out of it and Bruce had no idea if he’d gotten hit with a milder dose of fear toxin. If he was going to give Dick a cruel hope only to tear it away.

Bruce considered the odds of all of this being a fear-induced hallucination, and decided that if it was, Dick was probably a hallucination as well.

“Jason’s alive.”

Silence. The noise of the winds disappeared with the faint sound of a door closing.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said, his voice clearer, “I don’t think I heard you properly.”

“Jason’s alive.”

“Batman,” Dick said, his voice taking on an edge, “I think you’re going to have to repeat that.”

“Jason Todd. Your brother. He’s alive. I saw him.”

“You saw _Jason_?”

“Yes.” Tim subsided to low sobs and Bruce rubbed a hand over his back, consciously aware of comforting a younger Jason the same way.

“You saw him – where?”

“In the Cave.”

There was a long, slow exhale. “B,” Dick started, his tone dropping into exhaustion, “I don’t know what you saw –”

“I hugged him,” Bruce got out, because Dick clearly thought he’d lost his mind. “He was real.”

“You _hugged_ him?”

“Yes. And then he hit me with his helmet.”

Another long silence.

“Okay, I think we need to start this from the top. Are you hurt?”

“…I may be slightly concussed.” Tim chose that moment to start screaming for Jason to run, and Bruce winced as the silence on the other end became more pointed. “Tim’s been hit with fear toxin.”

“I’m on my way,” Dick said, and he could hear a motorcycle revving in the background, “Give me the important details. Where are you? Where’s Crane? Where’s – where’s Jason?”

“Tim and I are in the Cave. Synthesizer still has twenty minutes on the antidote. Crane got away. So did Jason.”

Dick cursed, and he could hear the whine as the motorcycle accelerated.

“Dick,” Bruce said softly, because he needed to say it, needed the words out loud so he didn’t feel like he was drowning in doubt. “He’s alive. He’s real.”

He could be fake. It could just be an unfortunate resemblance. A malicious trick. A hallucination. A clone. A fever dream. Batman knew the importance of never jumping to a conclusion.

But this was his _son_. Back from the dead. Back from the grave this life had put him into.

And while Batman couldn’t hope, Bruce _could_.

A low, shaky breath. “I’ll be there in an hour,” Dick said, and switched off his comm.

* * *

Dick had to admit that the cowl footage was some pretty convincing evidence.

He’d come here, ready to find a Batman that had finally snapped, ready to talk down an angry, grieving Bruce for the second time and worrying about a Robin caught in the crossfire – only to be faced with Tim sleeping peacefully and Bruce restarting a loop of the Cave’s security footage.

Bruce had let Dick walk him through several tests. Blood work was clean, both of fear toxin and any other unexplained substance. Memory tests came back fine. The cowl footage matched Bruce’s recount of the night – patrol, Scarecrow escaping, Batman going to confront him while Robin checked up on a different lead, the fight, Scarecrow escaping, searching for Robin, and Batman showing up to an abandoned building in the Bowery to see that someone had beat him to it.

Someone that looked painfully like Jason.

There was a white streak in his hair and his eyes seemed to be a different color, but the face structure was the same. He was bigger. Older. Like he hadn’t spent three years in a coffin six feet below.

Like he wasn’t put there in a funeral that Dick hadn’t attended.

“Bruce,” Dick said, his voice wavering, “Did Jason die?”

He wanted to say that Bruce wouldn’t have concealed something like that from him, but Dick had lost that conviction back when he’d been Robin.

Bruce looked up at him, and Dick could see the exact moment when the confusion vanished. “Yes,” Bruce said, quiet, “It was…confirmed. By two different doctors. The funeral was closed-casket, but it was definitely his body.”

Dick exhaled slowly, and they both turned to stare at Jason slicing through Tim’s bonds, reassuring him in the same, soothing tone he’d developed as Robin, and scooping the kid up as he prepared to leave.

But if Bruce had buried him, then why did Jason look like he’d never died? Why was he taller and broader than Dick ever thought he’d be, growth apparently not stunted by malnutrition and –

Green eyes flashed vividly in the footage.

Dick and Bruce reached the same conclusion at the same time.

“The Lazarus Pit,” Dick breathed out, shocked.

“ _Ra’s_ ,” Bruce snarled, his hands curling into fists, straightening up and stalking to the Batcomputer.

“Wait,” Dick said, hands raised, “Wait, B, we still don’t have proof.”

Bruce didn’t look like he was going to wait for proof. Bruce looked like he was going to raze the League of Assassins to the ground.

“Bruce,” Dick said softly, “We still need to confirm that it’s _him_.”

DNA evidence. Memories. There were a lot of possible explanations for why a guy that looked like a nineteen-year-old Jason Todd was running around Gotham and – considering the red helmet – none of them were good.

Bruce subsided into his version of a sullen pout. Tim was ignoring him entirely in favor of re-watching Jason carry him out of the building – the kid had been convinced by the cowl footage, and Dick had known it was a lost cause the moment he heard Tim stutter, awed, “He saved me.”

Dick was the only one asking the inconvenient questions - if it _was_ Jason, why hadn’t he come home? Where was he and what had he been doing for the past three years? Why was he dressed like the Red Hood? _Was_ he the Red Hood? Was this all one of the Joker’s sick games?

Dick particularly hated the last question, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. The bloody gang war in Crime Alley. The duffel bag of heads. The mysterious rearranging of the cartels. This smelled like a trap, and with Scarecrow still on the loose, Dick was extremely wary.

Scarecrow. The Red Hood. The Joker. The sudden appearance of the one person that could send Bruce into a tailspin.

“I’ll get a message out to Talia,” Bruce said finally, “Tim –”

“I’ll call the graveyard,” Tim said, already hunched over his laptop, “If it’s Jason, then the body in the coffin –”

“I’ll talk to Oracle, see if she’s noticed anything strange,” Dick said. The security footage restarted, and Jason appeared again, murmuring gentle reassurances to Tim as the younger boy cried on the medbay bed.

“We’ll start patrol earlier today,” Bruce said, clipped, “Split up. Cover more ground. We’ll find him.”

Tim nodded enthusiastically. Dick watched Jason slam a helmet into the side of Bruce’s head, and said nothing.

_“Your son is dead.”_

Rage, bitterness, and jealousy. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to end well.

* * *

Jason spent nearly the entire day pacing around his apartment and trying to not have a breakdown. The kid had been bad enough, but _Batman_?

Batman had hugged him. Had looked _happy_. But it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t care, not while the Joker was still breathing. He couldn’t.

Jason had screwed up. Big time. The baby bird might’ve explained away his appearance as a hallucination, but Batman was far too paranoid to mark his presence down to a delusion. The flimsy lies that had shielded him in this city were about to be torn down. His plans, his goals, his dreams – all of them were going up in flames.

No. He had to calm down. Batman hadn’t found him yet. And he’d been searching for the Red Hood long before Jason had revealed his face. He had to trust that his safehouse would stand up to the increased scrutiny. After all, Batman didn’t know what his plans were. He didn’t know what Jason was doing.

And it was going to stay that way. It _was_.

Going out on patrol seemed like a monumentally stupid idea, but Jason was going to put a fist through a wall if he had to stay in the apartment. He would stick to the shadows – Batman never entered Crime Alley anyway, and after the silence of last night, the streets would be a little rowdier.

  
They hadn’t caught Scarecrow yet, but that wouldn’t stop any enterprising criminal equipped with a gas mask.

As long as he stuck to the darker pockets of town – and in Crime Alley there were a lot of dark pockets – he would be fine. As long as –

“Jason.”

Hood did not freeze or stop or even twitch, continuing to slink through the alleyway even as sudden shock slammed into a mental wall of _don’t let him see_.

A creak of the fire escape above him, a completely unnecessary backflip, and a black-and-blue outline was blocking the exit.

“Nightwing,” Hood greeted, thankful that no one could see his heart hammering in his chest. He hadn’t expected Batman to call in his wayward bird. “You’re a little far from your usual stomping grounds. Lost? I can find you the next bus to Bludhaven.”

“Jason,” Nightwing repeated. His escrima were already out, which wasn’t a good sign. Usually he waited to draw them with a flourish and a quip.

“I go by Red Hood, actually.”

“Jason, I saw the footage,” Nightwing said, stepping closer, “I know it’s you. Can we talk?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hood lied, and on Nightwing’s next step he kicked out the dumpster and turned, aiming his grapple.

The rooftops were the worst place to go to outrun the Bats, but if all three of them were closing in on him, there was nothing that Hood could do. The point was to stay off the radar, lay low until his plan fell into place, and tonight had gone to shit even faster than yesterday night had.

The only consolation was that Nightwing appeared to be alone. No sign of a cape or a cowl or a baby bird. It meant that Nightwing was going to have to put some effort in if he wanted to capture Hood.

“Jason, wait! I just want to talk!”

“I’m not who you’re looking for!” Hood yelled back as he darted to the next rooftop, resisted the urge to scream _‘leave me alone!’_. Goddamn overly-cheerful and obnoxious older brot–

No. _No_. This was – this was _exactly_ what he was afraid of. This was what Talia meant when she said his heart was still soft. First the kid – the _Replacement_ , the boy that had stolen his suit and his place and Hood couldn’t believe he’d actually saved him – then Bru– _Batman_ , and now Nightwing.

No. None of them cared about him. He couldn’t care about them. _No._

Right before the next leap, Hood turned, gun out, and shot – Nightwing made an undignified yelp and nearly threw himself off the building to dodge it. When he straightened, the face behind the mask was blank.

There was no more _‘I want to talk’_.

Hood allowed himself a grim smile before he grappled away.

The chase ended up stretching across the rooftops of Crime Alley. Hood was aware he didn’t have much time, Nightwing would’ve already called it in and if Batman and Robin didn’t show up in the next five minutes, then something was seriously wrong. Hood knew Crime Alley better than Nightwing ever did, but that was the only thing going for him.

That, and shooting at Nightwing whenever the idiot got a little too close.

Hood touched down on a warehouse and heard low murmurs of noise from within – he made a split second decision and turned towards his pursuer instead of away.

Nightwing landed on the roof after him, and didn’t have the time to dodge before Hood was lunging at him, tackling them through the skylight.

It was the one thing every criminal in Gotham learned well. There was no way to outrun a Bat, but you could definitely distract them.

The fact that they crash landed in the midst of a group of thugs ringing a man dressed in a burlap sack was the other thing everyone in Gotham knew well. Things didn’t just go wrong, they went wrong _catastrophically_.

Hood had a grapple up and locked before Scarecrow could even open his mouth – he _did not_ want to be anywhere near fear toxin, he’d catapulted Nightwing in the midst of a growing mess, and with any luck, the focus on capturing Scarecrow would allow him to slink back home.

Except seconds after he landed on the second floor, a second pair of footsteps joined him, ignoring the growing clamor below them. Nightwing had kept his grip on the escrima sticks, and was blocking Hood’s easiest access to the windows.

Hood felt a cold pit of dread pool in his stomach.

The Red Hood had significantly moved up the Bats’ list of priorities, if they were willing to ignore an imminent _fear toxin outbreak_ in favor of dealing with him.

“Jason,” Nightwing said quietly, “I really just want to talk.”

Hood kept his hand on the gun. “I don’t understand why you can’t get it through your thick skull, Dickhead. He’s _dead_.”

In hindsight, Hood should’ve realized that was one of the worst possible things he could’ve said. He saw it in the way Nightwing shifted, the sudden, suppressed flinch he couldn’t quite hide, the way his escrima sticks lowered just a fraction.

Robin had been hit with fear toxin. Batman had a head injury. So Nightwing was supposed to be the impartial observer. Was prepared to accept any explanation other than the Red Hood was Jason Todd back from the dead. And with two sentences and an inopportune insult, Hood had just confirmed that.

“Jason,” Nightwing said, his voice cracking, “Jason, please –”

Nope. He was not dealing with this. With a lack of any other options, Hood attacked.

Nightwing shifted into movement, still talking – Hood aimed a vicious punch to break his jaw but the other vigilante ducked, moving with the same easy flexibility as he danced around Hood. He was prattling about returning home and the Cave and something about Batman, but Hood _didn’t care_.

He just wanted them to stop interfering. He had a plan. It was going to work and now everything was falling apart and Hood felt like the pieces were slipping through his hands and –

“Jason!”

Hood froze for a split-second, the knee-jerk response to his own name, and Nightwing’s elbow cracked down on his shoulder, sending him stumbling down. He landed on one knee, used his momentum to lunge back up, and spun around, gun first.

Nightwing was still, wavering on his feet, staring at the needle sticking out of his arm. The henchman was moving an empty hand to the holster at his waist –

Too slow.

Nightwing let out a sharp cry at the sudden bang, jolting backwards. His limbs were beginning to jitter, his breathing picking up, fast and uneven. “Jason?” he called out shakily, his gaze glancing around the floor and landing on shadows.

Perfect. Big Bird couldn’t see him. Hood ignored the cooling corpse and made for the windows. Batman and Robin would be here soon, and Hood needed to _go_. He needed to sit down and figure out what he was planning to do because his entire family knowing he was back two weeks ahead of schedule was not in the plan, and his timeline was more confused than a knotted ball of yarn.

Multiple footsteps heading up the stairs. Scarecrow’s distant order – “Catch one of them!” Too-fast breathing stuttering through the air.

“Jaybird?” Soft and broken.

Jason hesitated on the window. The footsteps were getting closer. Dick made a soft, mournful sound, curled up into as small a target as possible and shaking visibly. Batman would come for him. For his precious golden child. Batman would –

Dick choked on a scream as Jason roughly hauled him up. “Shut it, Dickiebird,” Jason hissed, and fingers tightened on his leather jacket as Jason more-or-less dragged his cargo to the window.

It wasn’t difficult to pull them up to the roof, and only slightly difficult to break Dick’s hold on his jacket because he kept snatching at it before Jason could move away. He finally extricated himself and stepped back – Dick should be safe on the rooftop until Batman could –

“Jason.”

Hood stifled the shout as he whirled around. Batman was crouching on the edge of the roof, staring straight at him. He glided forward as Jason watched, getting closer and closer and –

“Stop,” Jason said, his voice hoarse. The hand on his gun was still, but it felt like it should be shaking. “Or I shoot.”

Batman stopped. Jason didn’t need to look to know where his gun was pointing. Batman stared at the gun in his hands and then down to Nightwing, unresponsive and letting out shaky breaths, and then back at Jason.

He curled his finger around the trigger. “Don’t follow me,” he said. He felt like screaming, but his muscles had locked up and he’d had a plan and everything was falling apart and he was pointing a gun at someone who wasn’t even aware they were being held hostage and Jason had no idea what he was doing anymore.

He just knew he needed to leave.

Batman stared at Nightwing again, calculating the angle of Jason’s gun. Both of them knew it wasn’t going to hit anything fatal. Nightwing shuddered, curling up further with a choked-up cry.

“Um, what’s going on –”

Jason took immediate advantage of the distraction, raising the gun from Nightwing to the new bird perched on the edge of the roof. The kid flinched back in surprise, Batman took an instinctive step towards his Robin and away from Jason, and Jason threw down a smoke bomb and fired his grapple.

“ _Jason_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Jason, observing the right facts and coming to the absolutely wrong conclusions.


	3. Chapter 3

“The coffin’s empty,” Tim offered, unsure of who even cared anymore. He didn’t know what Jason had said to Dick, but Bruce had to actually, physically stop him from running back to the streets the moment he’d woken up, still jittery from the aftereffects of the fear toxin.

They were waiting on DNA evidence, but everyone was already convinced. It was Jason. His grave was empty, his eyes were Lazarus green, and Talia al Ghul was not answered any of Bruce’s increasingly furious calls.

“I thought we put alarms on it,” Dick said, pacing back and forth across the Cave floor and spinning an escrima stick. Bruce was at the Batcomputer, scouring the city’s security camera footage and coordinating a search with Oracle. Tim was technically supposed to be at school, but no one had brought it up yet, and he was content to be running on five cups of coffee and no sleep.

They had to find Jason. Once they found Jason, everything would be okay.

“We did,” Bruce grunted, “There was no record of the grave being dug up or the coffin being opened.”

Tim looked back at the pictures the graveyard had sent, and swallowed. “It wasn’t dug up,” he said quietly, “The coffin was broken from within.”

Dick froze, mid-step. Bruce swiveled to face him. “What,” Dick said, his voice strangled, “What do you mean, _from within_? What – you can’t tell me Jason – he didn’t –”

“He was dead,” Bruce said, his face white, “He was – there were two different coroners – the body – he was dead and his injuries –”

“Tim,” Dick said, burying his head in his hands, “Please don’t tell me he crawled out of his own grave.”

Tim looked at Dick, looked at the pictures they were sent, and kept his mouth shut.

“No wonder he hates us,” Dick choked out, low and mournful.

“He was _dead_ ,” Bruce repeated, alarmingly pale.

“But he’s alive now,” Tim said, drawing up determination, “You couldn’t know that he was – you didn’t know. But you can’t spend all your time beating yourselves up for it. He’s alive _now_. He’s here _now_. We can find him and bring him home.”

Bruce stared at him for a long moment before he gave a single, slow nod, his face still ashen, and turned back to the computer.

Dick raised his head, his face blotchy and his eyes watery. “But what if he doesn’t want to come back?” Dick asked, the words quiet but deafening in the sudden silence.

No one answered him.

* * *

Everything was going wrong. No. Everything was going so badly it couldn’t even be called _wrong_ anymore, this was the worst possible outcome and every piece of his plan had just been broken beyond repair.

Scarecrow was still at large. That meant more fear on the streets, a hyper-vigilant police force, and increased scrutiny and instability in Arkham.

Nightwing was back in Gotham. The kid Jason could’ve dealt with easily – was supposed to have already been dealt with, leaving a sidelined bird with broken wings and Batman all alone – but even a year of League training wouldn’t be enough to take down Nightwing.

Batman knew the face behind the helmet. That was supposed to be Jason’s big reveal, the truth he was going to grind Batman’s face in, the knife he was going to twist into his side with a gun to the clown’s head.

But he already knew. They already knew. There was no plan anymore, because everything was in pieces, because everything had fallen apart so catastrophically that Jason had no idea what he was doing anymore.

_“Jason?”_

_“Jay. You’re alive.”_

_“Jaybird?”_

No. No. _No_ –

_“Jason!”_

_“Jason, what happened –”_

_“Jason, I just want to talk –”_

This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening –

_“Jay-lad.”_

_“Little Wing!”_

Jason slammed his hands over his ears but that didn’t stop the onslaught of memory-voices.

_“You’ll never be as good as him.”_

_“You brought another kid home?!”_

_“You’re fired.”_

_“You’ve been replaced, Jason. There’s a new Robin.”_

_“Which hurts more?”_

_“He didn’t kill him. He didn’t_ care _.”_

_“Jason, run, he’s right behind you!”_

_“A? Or B?”_

_“Street rat.”_

_“Forehand? Or backhand?”_

_“I’ll help you get your revenge.”_

_“Tell the big man I said hello.”_

No – no – it was too much – it was a crowbar smashing into bone and the tick- _tick_ -tick of bomb counting down and the stale air and mud and the acid green searing into him and he couldn’t handle it anymore, he needed to get out, he needed to _go_.

Jason barely remembered slamming his helmet back on as he slipped through the window, his fingers shaking and chills spreading through his limbs. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He knew he had to _get away_ but he didn’t even know what he was running from.

The voices were in his head, clawing and jostling for space, getting louder and louder, accompanied by a rising tide of green like a wave surging up and up and _up_ –

Hood was very afraid of that wave crashing down.

It wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t even have the control to sit still and breathe, to calm down, to ignore the broken, disjointed pieces of memory attacking his mind. The wave was getting higher and higher, and it was going to crash down.

The rage. The violence. The vicious brutality that accompanied Pit madness.

He needed to get away. He needed to be far, far away from civilians. He needed to find it an outlet.

A scream. Too close and too far. A kid screaming, a man curled up and sobbing, a burlap sack and a too-high, too-pleased voice.

Well, if he couldn’t find the Joker, the Scarecrow would do well enough.

A plan. A mission. Find Crane. Destroy Crane. Simple and to the point. Let the green ruin everything around him.

Hood crept into the warehouse and immediately climbed up into the rafters. That was definitely Scarecrow standing in front of a row of vials, dosing bullets with his latest concoction. His group of henchmen were milling around – three guarding each of the two entrances and two strolling around and casting periodic glances at the roof like they could see through the darkness. Whatever Scarecrow was planning, it wasn’t going down tonight – he didn’t have nearly enough men to pull off anything big.

Or this wasn’t supposed to be something big. Not enough toxin to poison the water supply or flood the air. Enough to fill maybe twenty bullets. Three guns. They had a specific target in mind.

Too bad Hood was going to ruin it.

He holstered the gun and drew out the knife – the green rose higher, wavered, and fell.

Rage howling through his veins, flooding through his body, the taste of iron heavy on his tongue as he shuddered, fury narrowing his focus to a laser point. Hood waited until one of the henchmen stopped right below him, and looked up.

Hood stepped off the rafters with a wide, malicious smile behind the red helmet. The screaming started near immediately, one voice cutting out as Hood dropped down hard enough to slam the guy into the ground. Crane spun around, a vial breaking – “Wait, that’s not a Bat!” – and shouting and gunfire as Hood lashed out with the knife.

No. Not a Bat. Too bad for them. Hood grinned with fury jittering through his veins, and attacked.

* * *

“Got reports of Scarecrow near the Bowery,” Nightwing reported, and Bruce stifled the urge to curse. He was on the outskirts of Crime Alley, and the closest to the scene.

Sorely tempted to tell Nightwing to ignore it, Bruce growled into his comm, “I’m on it.”

He would get Crane, thoroughly impress upon him the inconvenience of hunting down escaped prisoners when he was trying to find his _son_ , and then go right back to searching for Jason.

He heard the screams before he even stepped inside, and he immediately had to dodge gunfire as a thug shot at a blur of black and red. The attacker stopped long enough for Bruce to register the red helmet before leaping at the thug, bloody knife in hand. The screams cut off to a dying gurgle before falling to complete silence.

Bruce stared at the carnage in front of him, stunned and nauseated.

There was blood everywhere. Hood’s gloves and armor were drenched in it – for a beat, Bruce was in a different country, holding a different uniform, and even the red cloth couldn’t hide the stains.

Hood turned as soon as Bruce took a step towards him. “You again,” Hood snarled, flicking the knife in his hand with a twist. Blood drops splattered against the floor.

Eight bodies on the ground. None of them looked like Scarecrow. Bruce didn’t need to check to know that all of them were dead.

The Red Hood was Jason. _Jason_ – his son, his Robin, the laughing bright boy who flew with magic – was the _Red Hood_.

“Haven’t found Crane,” Bruce said into his comm, “But I did find Jason.”

“The last bump on the head wasn’t good enough for you?” Hood – _Jason_ sneered.

“Jason,” Bruce said quietly, creeping closer with his hands held up in surrender. There was a thread of rage in Jason’s voice, the same thread that showed up whenever Bruce opened his mouth.

Jason had been soft and gentle with Tim. Had been patient with Dick. And yet he turned to fury every time he heard Bruce.

“You’re alive,” Bruce said, because he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Jay, you’re alive. I’m so happy to see you.”

“I’m not him!” Jason seethed, skittering back with the knife held between them, “When will you get it through your skull? He _died_. He died and you replaced him like it was _nothing_. He died and you didn’t even care!”

“Jason, I cared,” Bruce said, his voice still a Batman growl, “I missed you so much. Please come home.”

“Why, so you can put me back in the coffin?”

Bruce jerked back in shock.

Jason took the opportunity to attack, knife aiming for the weak points in the suit’s Kevlar weave. Bruce dodged, spinning around him and blocking blows, careful to only defend as he tried to figure out what he could say, what he could do to make Jason stop.

Sedative, he briefly thought of and dismissed – Jason had run half across the world the last time they clashed and Bruce was _not_ losing him again. That meant he needed to talk him down, needed to understand why Jason was so _angry_ –

“Go away!” Jason screamed, his attacks getting more manic and less purposeful, “You’re _ruining_ everything – I had a _plan_ – you can’t just –”

What plan? What was going on? Bruce swore he was going to get a straight answer out of Talia al Ghul if he had to go all the way to Nanda Parbat. “Jason –”

“Stop it!” Jason hissed, retreating a step and moving in a slow circle. Bruce matched his movements, hands still half-raised in surrender. “Stop calling me that! Stop – you didn’t – I need to kill him – I can’t –”

_Kill him_. Bruce knew exactly who he was talking about. He opened his mouth, but there wasn’t an easy way to say _‘don’t kill the guy who tortured and murdered you’_ and Bruce wavered as Jason stilled.

“Please come home,” Bruce entreated, “I miss you.”

Jason barked out a laugh, low and harsh. “You don’t get to say that, old man.”

Dick’s words echoed in his head _– “What if he doesn’t want to come back?”_ – and Bruce sucked in a harsh breath as Jason tensed. The thing about the helmet was that Bruce didn’t know what Jason was looking at, which was why he was taken aback when Jason suddenly shifted into a lunge.

Bruce tried to dodge, but Jason was too close and too fast and even after twisting to avoid the bulk of the attack, Bruce still staggered under his second son’s weight, instinctively tensing for the sudden burst of a knife sliding between the armored panels of his suit –

No knife. No pain. Bruce stumbled back another step and Jason uncurled slowly, one hand clasped to his right side.

Laughter bordering on the edge of screams.

Bruce turned, horror sliding through his veins as Scarecrow straightened, levelling a modified gun. Probably with modified bullets. Fear toxin.

Jason was beginning to shiver.

Bruce lunged for his son, tackling them both to the ground as another bullet whizzed by their heads, impacting the far wall with a burst that sprayed toxin. “Found Crane,” Bruce growled into his comm as he got off of Jason and headed for Scarecrow.

The third bullet missed as well and Scarecrow didn’t get the chance to shoot a fourth, Bruce wrenching the gun out of his hands with perhaps more force than necessary as bone crunched under his grasp.

Jason started screaming.

The backhand nearly sent Scarecrow through a table. Nightwing burst through the nearest window, his gaze tracking Scarecrow and then jolting further into the warehouse as Jason let out another strangled shriek.

“Get him to the police,” Bruce ordered, hurrying back to Jason’s side. He was writhing on the ground, one hand clamped to the wound in his side, red seeping through his fingers, as he attempted to claw his helmet off with the other.

“Jason –” Bruce had to duck as Jason threw the helmet at him and scrambled away with a sob.

“B – B, _please_ ,” Jason choked out, his gaze skittering across the shadows, “Please, you have to find me, you have to save me.”

“I’m right here, Jason,” Bruce said, finding the antidote tucked into one of his pockets and advancing closer.

Jason screamed again as Bruce reached for him, struggling to get away, but Bruce ducked a flailing hand and plunged the needle into his neck. “I’m here, Jay, I’m right here,” Bruce said, dropping the Batman growl and running a gloved hand through Jason’s hair, “I’m right here, I found you –” _too late_ , his mind hissed, “– you’re okay, I got you.”

“B?” Jason was slurring now, his struggles getting weaker as the antidote did its work and Jason crashed from the adrenaline rush.

“I’m right here,” Bruce said, gathering his son in his arms and pressing a kiss to his forehead, just like he did all those years ago.

The difference was that this time the skin was warm.

* * *

Screaming and _screaming_ and screaming and his body felt like it was on fire and he was begging his dad to come and save him, _please, I’m sorry, please_ and no one was coming and it was cold and dark and acid green and –

_“I’m right here.”_

No, no one was there, no one was coming, no one had saved him –

_“You’re okay, I got you.”_

A lie, it was all a lie, he was alone, abandoned and lost and – and –

_“Please come home. I miss you.”_

And he’d stepped between Batman and the bullet like he was still wearing that gleaming _R_.

Jason jolted back to consciousness with the last vestiges of fear running through his system, panic and dread and clawing terror, and it should’ve been enough to send him running, to trigger the green and fists and blood –

But it was warm and the air smelled like the detergent Alfred used and there was an arm low across his stomach and breaths huffing into his ear with the slow rhythm of sleep and a soft weight curled half on top of his left side and fingers running through his hair in the gentle pattern that only one person had ever used.

“Dad?” Jason murmured, the word coming automatically to his lips.

The hand in his hair stilled for a brief moment before it resumed.

“I’m right here, Jay,” Bruce said quietly and Jason turned his head – it was dry and sticky and aching – to see a blurry shape. Jason blinked, and the shape resolved itself – Bruce was sitting in a chair by the bed and stroking Jason’s hair. Jason blinked again, and the room came into sharp clarity – the posters hadn’t changed position, the pictures on the desk had been moved a half-inch out of alignment, the books on his shelves were arranged in the order he’d always preferred.

Jason’s breath caught in his throat – was it all a bad dream, was the whole thing a toxin-induced nightmare, was it all fake – and he stilled when he saw the mop of dark hair resting right below his left shoulder, wedged into his side.

Green flared.

Not a dream, then. Real.

Jason had gotten caught and his plan was ruined and everything had fallen apart and – and this was his bedroom and Bruce was – Bruce was right here and – and he was warm with one arm curled around the Replacement and the other trapped underneath Dick and –

“Little Wing?”

The room was blurry again.

The green was still hissing and sparking but Jason was too tired, the kind of exhaustion that came with letting go, and he didn’t have the energy to claw himself out of the warmth, to draw up the walls and break the façade. He was tired and for the first time in three years, he could just _rest_.

Jason shifted slightly, nudging himself further into Dick’s octopus-armed grasp, and bent his head until he could bury his face in the kid’s hair. “I’m still mad,” he said hoarsely, keeping his eyes closed.

“That’s okay, Jason,” Bruce said softly, “As long as you’re home. As long as you’re here. Everything will be okay.”

Jason gave a shuddery exhale, and let himself believe it.

* * *

“Beloved. You have been calling quite –”

“How could you keep _my son_ from me?”

“…Who told you about Damian?”

“…”

“Oh. You were talking about Jason.”

“…”

“Well, it’s been lovely catching up with –”

“Talia. Who’s Damian?”

“Hope to see you around –”

“ _Talia_!”


End file.
